The Portland daily press., 1887-09-02
THE MODERN COLLEGE.
Athletics and aesthetics In Equal
Parts.

l"Editor's Drawer" in September Harper's.l
Education is not at all the bare scholastic
struggle that it formerly was. The early
graduate who remembers the Spartan expe-
risnces of his college life, the untimely morn
ing bell that called him from his hard couch
to the barn-like chapel, the bare walls of his
cell-like study, the uncomfortable chairs and
the rude everything, indeed, subordi-
mated to the one idea of discipline-must
have bitter thoughts of what he might have
become If he had enjoyed all the aids to de-
velopment which the modern student has.
And the bevy of girls who are permitted on
rare holidays to inspect the monastc apart
ments where the young gentlemen study
modern life must feel sinking of the heart
when they realize how impossible it will be
for them to make home at all worthy of
the modern highly educated young man.
What place it is, this Sybaritic bower, for
the cultivation of the intellect Neither
Webster nor Calhoun had any such influence
about him. What a stimulus to the mind it
is, this rug-covered and curtained chamberI
its tinted walls hung with exquisite etchings
and bits OF color in oil, and the winning pic
lures Of the most beautiful actresses and
singers of our time: silken portierres; deep
chairs that invite to the profoundest refiec
ton upon the great problems of existence:
carved tables strewn with all the literature
OF the boudoir; rows of book-shelves where
the grand classics jostle the latest dialect
and realistic outcome of our civilization: an
elegant chandelier on whose branching arms
hang a hundred souvenirs of the german;
bats, balls, rackets-all the tools of the high
er education; deep window seat of blue
plush. where the young anchorite lies and
ponders perhaps an epic, perhaps an grafton
in the senate, perhaps a great argument at
the bar, more probably the solution of the
chronic struggle between capital and labor
DO we forget the piano, the rack of carved
pipes? These are for relaxation, for relief
in the hardships of the stern collegiate life.
for the hours of sentiment that come alike to
pitcher and stroke oar, when he sings:
''Such an ed-u cation has my Mary AnDp
Naturally this ascetic life manifests itself
more or less in the undress apparel IF the
deyotees of learning. But the striped CAPS
and striped jackets that mark the student
are not imposed by the State, and not adopt-
ed in the humility of penance for sins, but
are noble signs of the fraternity of learning.
taken from the tennis-court and the boat
house and the race course, and show that all
education is one an aesthetic democracy,
fellowship being the construer of Greek and
the flying rider OF the thoroughbred. 1t is
note of the higher education of the period.
There was good deal said some time ago
ABOUT WHAT was cdileu tHe luAuTlOuS lie OF
some of the students at one of our universe
ties. And an impression was spread abroad
that this must necessarily interfere with the
pursuit of learning, and consequently with
success in life. II don't see how you can
study in such bower" said an old-fash-
Toned person who saw for the first time one
of these silken scholastic dens. The reply
was only a plying smile. Study? Why,
dld THIS ignorant questiOner know that in
TINS very university an undergraduate had
received the offer of higher salary as pitch
er IN base ball nine than was ever made to
any Oh Its graduates for filling any profess
sors chair in this country?